← Fame through time1800-1809
The 1800s
Whose names filled the books of the 1800s - anyone at all, however long dead - counted as mentions per million words printed, so a period that simply published more does not inflate anyone.
Talked about then
Whose names appeared most in English books during the 1800s, whenever they lived.
- 1
Jesus107 - 2
Homer26 - 3
Cicero22 - 4
Virgil21 - 5
Augustus16 - 6
Plato12 - 7
Aristotle12 - 8
Plutarch9.9 - 9
Socrates8.9 - 10
Herodotus7.8 - 11
Ovid7.8 - 12
Demosthenes6.2 - 13
Cleopatra5.8 - 14
Strabo5.5 - 15
Charlemagne4.5 - 16
Livy3.9 - 17
Xenophon3.6 - 18
Pindar3.6 - 19
Pericles3.6 - 20
William Jones3.5 - 21
Henry VII, Holy Roman Emperor3.3 - 22
Solon3.3 - 23
Pythagoras3.2 - 24
Otho3.2 - 25
Euripides3.2
Lived then
The most notable people whose working lives fell in the 1800s, ranked where coverage and readership agree.
- 1
Napoleon22 decades - 2
Ludwig van Beethoven21 decades - 3
Andrew Jackson22 decades - 4
John Quincy Adams22 decades - 5
William Henry Harrison22 decades - 6
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel21 decades - 7
Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellingtonnot measured- - 8
William Wordsworth22 decades - 9
Walter Scott22 decades - 10
Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor22 decades - 11
Louis Philippe I19 decades - 12
Alexander von Humboldt8 decades - 13
Samuel Taylor Coleridge19 decades - 14
Caspar David Friedrich11 decades - 15
Klemens von Metternich0 decades - 16
Muhammad Ali of Egypt0 decades - 17
Joachim Murat21 decades - 18
François-René de Chateaubriand11 decades - 19
John Dalton22 decades - 20
Joseph Bonaparte22 decades - 21
Pope Gregory XVI19 decades - 22
Germaine de Staël10 decades - 23
Thomas Robert Malthus8 decades - 24
Frederick William III of Prussianot measured- - 25
Joseph Fourier11 decades - 26
Novalis22 decades - 27
Ivan Krylov18 decades - 28
Friedrich Hölderlin18 decades - 29
David Ricardo21 decades - 30
Michel Ney18 decades - 31
Nikolay Karamzin20 decades - 32
William IV of the United Kingdomnot measured- - 33
Wilhelm von Humboldt22 decades - 34
Manuel Belgrano21 decades - 35
William I of the Netherlands0 decades - 36
Nicéphore Niépce6 decades - 37
Tecumsehnot measured- - 38
Robert Owen22 decades - 39
Ernest Augustus, King of Hanover0 decades - 40
Charles Fourier19 decades - 41
Pyotr Bagration7 decades - 42
Georges Cuvier21 decades - 43
Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearnnot measured- - 44
John VI of Portugal0 decades - 45
Robert Fulton22 decades - 46
Dolley Madison7 decades - 47
Fath-Ali Shah Qajar0 decades - 48
Frederick VI of Denmark0 decades - 49
José María Morelos21 decades - 50
George Canning22 decades - 51
Benjamin Constant22 decades - 52
Mustafa IV0 decades - 53
Eli Whitney21 decades - 54
Meriwether Lewis19 decades - 55
Louis-Nicolas Davout0 decades - 56
Jean Lannes1 decades - 57
Richard Trevithick19 decades - 58
Friedrich Schleiermacher21 decades - 59
Sequoyah16 decades - 60
Caroline of Brunswick16 decades - 61
Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschennot measured- - 62
Robert Jenkinson, 2nd Earl of Liverpoolnot measured- - 63
Joseph Radetzky von Radetznot measured- - 64
Andreas Hofer22 decades - 65
Jean-de-Dieu Soultnot measured- - 66
Kaʻahumanunot measured- - 67
Martha Jefferson Randolph1 decades - 68
Friedrich Schlegel22 decades - 69
Emperor Kōkakunot measured- - 70
Daniel D. Tompkins18 decades - 71
Mungo Park22 decades - 72
Robert Southey22 decades - 73
Matthew Flinders15 decades - 74
Emma, Lady Hamilton1 decades - 75
José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia13 decades - 76
Manuel Godoy22 decades - 77
Karađorđe0 decades - 78
William Clark22 decades - 79
James Mill22 decades - 80
Maria Theresa of Naples and Sicilynot measured- - 81
Henri Christophe9 decades - 82
Jean-Baptiste Say21 decades - 83
Prince Augustus Frederick, Duke of Sussexnot measured- - 84
Ernst Moritz Arndt22 decades - 85
Anne Catherine Emmerich8 decades - 86
Auguste de Marmontnot measured- - 87
Rachel Jackson7 decades - 88
Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridgenot measured- - 89
Johnny Appleseed13 decades - 90
Bertel Thorvaldsen1 decades - 91
Theodoros Kolokotronis0 decades - 92
Phutthaloetla Naphalai0 decades - 93
Elizabeth Ann Seton2 decades - 94
Maria Edgeworth22 decades - 95
Grand Duchess Alexandra Pavlovna of Russia19 decades - 96
Laskarina Bouboulina0 decades - 97
Elizabeth Monroe4 decades - 98
Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh1 decades - 99
August Wilhelm Schlegel22 decades - 100
Alexey Andreevich Arakcheyev6 decades
How to read these rankings
- Attention, not reputation. A place on these lists reflects the attention a person still draws in the public record. It is not a judgement on the life.
- Fame in print. The curves show how often a name appeared in the books of each decade from 1800 to 2019, drawn from the Google Books Ngram corpus.
- Gaps are left as gaps. Where the record is too thin to be fair, we would rather show nothing than guess.